Quelques questions de français
Quelques questions de français
1. Are the vowels in "vînmes" and "tînmes" nasalised?
2. If so, are these the only examples of nasalised vowels appearing directly before nasal consonants in the next syllable?
3. Besides "vîntes" and "tîntes", how many other words have a circumflexed nasal vowel?
2. If so, are these the only examples of nasalised vowels appearing directly before nasal consonants in the next syllable?
3. Besides "vîntes" and "tîntes", how many other words have a circumflexed nasal vowel?
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Re: Quelques questions de français
1. Yes
2. No because they're monosyllabic
2. No because they're monosyllabic
Re: Quelques questions de français
As Vijay said, the /m/ would usually be considered tautosyllabic with the preceding vowel in words like this. I can't think of any other words with nasalized vowels followed by coda nasal consonants (automne has /ɔn/, damne has /an/, hymne has /imn/, indemne has /ɛmn/).alice wrote:2. If so, are these the only examples of nasalised vowels appearing directly before nasal consonants in the next syllable?
There are a greater number of words with a nasal vowel followed by a nasal consonant in another syllable like emmener, ennui. Link Some examples with in-/im- are mentioned on the following page: https://french.stackexchange.com/questi ... e-in-et-im
Also, there are some words ending in nasal vowels that have /n/-liaison without loss of vowel nasality, like un and bien. It seems loss of nasality is optional for mon, ton, son: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/1165783
None that I know of.3. Besides "vîntes" and "tîntes", how many other words have a circumflexed nasal vowel?
Re: Quelques questions de français
Isn't that a matter of interpretation? (I.e. wouldn't /vɛ̃.mə/ and /tɛ̃.mə/ be alternative ways to transcribe it?)Vijay wrote:2. No because they're monosyllabic
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.
Re: Quelques questions de français
This all makes me glad I learned Cajun, which didn't undergo denasalisation before nasal consonants (and which doesn't have any crazy passé défini forms to memorise).
Re: Quelques questions de français
The thing is that in a "standard" Parisian-type accent, there normally wouldn't be a final schwa phonetically, and it's pretty arguable to postulate that it exists phonemically (it can help explain some things, but so does postulating that "petit" ends with an unpronounced /t/, and if you keep on going along these lines you get something like a Sound Pattern of English analysis where you have all these history-based morpho-phonemes you end up including for theoretical reasons). The usual phonemic transcriptions would be /vɛ̃m/ and /tɛ̃m/.Pole, the wrote:Isn't that a matter of interpretation? (I.e. wouldn't /vɛ̃.mə/ and /tɛ̃.mə/ be alternative ways to transcribe it?)Vijay wrote:2. No because they're monosyllabic
Even in meridonal French, where word-final schwas are generally pronounced, it's tricky to say how syllabification of the preceding consonants works. Of course maximizing onsets is a general principle, and the set of allowable consonants and consonant clusters in this position is generally more like onsets (or codas + onsets) than like codas in other positions (e.g. you can have clusters like /tr/, /bl/) so phonotactics also seems to point towards a rightwards syllabification, but the patterns of vowel allophony point towards a leftwards syllabification: the "law of position" says that [e] and [o] are used in open syllables and [ɛ] and [ɔ] in closed syllables, and the latter are what is used in syllables before a consonant or consonant cluster followed by word-final /ə/; meridional speakers say things like /ˈrɔzə/ "rose" and [tɛtə] "tête".
Re: Quelques questions de français
I agree with everything Sumelic wrote.
Nasal vowels are rarely followed by a nasal consonant. The words vînmes and tînmes are indeed, to my knowledge, the only words when this happens for a coda nasal. I also think they're the only ones to have a circumflexed nasal vowel (the circumflex is only here because every other verb in the passé simple has a circumflex).
Other examples of nasal vowel + nasal consonant include words with the en- prefix, which is always nasalized: ennuyer, enivrer, emmener /ɑ̃nɥije, ɑ̃nivre, ɑ̃məne/ (there are quite a lot of them, actually). There's also néanmoins /neɑ̃mwɛ̃/. There are a few recent recent words where the in- prefix is pronounced /ɛ̃/ such as immangeable, immanquable /ɛ̃mɑ̃ʒabl, ɛ̃mɑ̃kabl/ (but usually this prefix isn't nasalized).
There's also the word enhardir /ɑ̃ardir/, which is (to my knowledge) the only one where a nasal vowel is directly followed by another vowel in the same word.
- I say mon ami as /mɔ̃ na mi/.
- Some other people say /mɔ na mi/.
Nasal vowels are rarely followed by a nasal consonant. The words vînmes and tînmes are indeed, to my knowledge, the only words when this happens for a coda nasal. I also think they're the only ones to have a circumflexed nasal vowel (the circumflex is only here because every other verb in the passé simple has a circumflex).
Other examples of nasal vowel + nasal consonant include words with the en- prefix, which is always nasalized: ennuyer, enivrer, emmener /ɑ̃nɥije, ɑ̃nivre, ɑ̃məne/ (there are quite a lot of them, actually). There's also néanmoins /neɑ̃mwɛ̃/. There are a few recent recent words where the in- prefix is pronounced /ɛ̃/ such as immangeable, immanquable /ɛ̃mɑ̃ʒabl, ɛ̃mɑ̃kabl/ (but usually this prefix isn't nasalized).
There's also the word enhardir /ɑ̃ardir/, which is (to my knowledge) the only one where a nasal vowel is directly followed by another vowel in the same word.
Also the preposition en, such as en arrivant /ɑ̃ narivɑ̃/.Sumelic wrote:Also, there are some words ending in nasal vowels that have /n/-liaison without loss of vowel nasality, like un and bien.
Yep. My dialect keeps the nasality for these words, but many other dialects (including some close-to-Parisian ones) lose the nasality here.Sumelic wrote:It seems loss of nasality is optional for mon, ton, son: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/1165783
- I say mon ami as /mɔ̃ na mi/.
- Some other people say /mɔ na mi/.
Well, you could decide to never actually use the passé simple: apart from French lessons, you'll never miss it.linguoboy wrote:This all makes me glad I learned Cajun, which didn't undergo denasalisation before nasal consonants (and which doesn't have any crazy passé défini forms to memorise).
Re: Quelques questions de français
Isn't this equally true of verbs derived from the same stems, e.g. parvînmes, soutînmes?Ryusenshi wrote:The words vînmes and tînmes are indeed, to my knowledge, the only words when this happens for a coda nasal.
That's true as far as active knowledge goes, but I ultimately had to learn these forms to read pre-contemporary French literature.Ryusenshi wrote:Well, you could decide to never actually use the passé simple: apart from French lessons, you'll never miss it.linguoboy wrote:This all makes me glad I learned Cajun, which didn't undergo denasalisation before nasal consonants (and which doesn't have any crazy passé défini forms to memorise).
Re: Quelques questions de français
Well if you wanted to write a story, heck if you wanted to write a children's story for your grandchildren, you would need to know how to use the passe simple.
Re: Quelques questions de français
You're saying otherwise my grandchildren wouldn't understand it?Nooj wrote:Well if you wanted to write a story, heck if you wanted to write a children's story for your grandchildren, you would need to know how to use the passe simple.
Re: Quelques questions de français
You're right, I had forgotten about them. My sentence should have been "The verbs vînmes, tînmes and other verbs derived from them are the only words where a nasal vowel is followed by a coda nasal consonant".linguoboy wrote:Isn't this equally true of verbs derived from the same stems, e.g. parvînmes, soutînmes?
That's true if you're writing a "serious" novel, or even a "young adult' novel (à la Harry Potter), but books for younger children are often written using the présent or the passé composé.Nooj wrote:Well if you wanted to write a story, heck if you wanted to write a children's story for your grandchildren, you would need to know how to use the passe simple.